


Gnomes

by patooey



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, Mental Health Issues, PTSD John, Sherlock Holmes and Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-06
Updated: 2015-10-06
Packaged: 2018-04-25 04:45:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4947238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patooey/pseuds/patooey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Sherlock's orchestrated death, John suffers from severe psychological trauma, the event adding to his already-existing PTSD. Years after, Sherlock comes back, only to find that John was far from the person he left, reduced to a man looking for his obscure gnomes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gnomes

**Author's Note:**

> This is from a two-and-a-half-year-old RP log from the Johnlock tag in Omegle. I was not able to get the details of whom I was RP-ing with, but I do remember that they were the John to my Sherlock. Whoever you are, if this sounds familiar to you, please contact me here!
> 
> Aha. Here come hiatus blues.
> 
> Also, when was the last time I wrote? Lol. As usual, friends, don't own anything, don't get anything. Just lots of love, feels, and maybe cookies.

Annie had stayed with John until the time his visitor came. He hadn't had a visitor in months. The last one who had tried to enter was a Harry Watson, and only managed to turn up very drunk and upset half the patients. She had been banned from visiting until she could prove herself fit. It was unknown as to how John would react to the visit from Sherlock Holmes. He had been in all the papers lately, that was why they had decided it would be best for a supervised visit in one of the observation rooms, rather than in the garden or main room. John was led from the living room to the observation room, Annie being careful to take her time and be gentle with the man.

“Gnomes… No Gnomes.” He told her. It was always Gnomes. No one knew what he was on about, but it always made him smile if you agreed with him. She was almost hoping that Sherlock would be able to make some sense of it. The door was pushed open and John was guided in, looking around and looking extremely confused.

“This is your visitor, John.” She said, gesturing to the man in one of the chairs. “Sherlock Holmes.”

John looked at her with a frown, a little like he was trying to work out what that meant, who it was.

“Gnomes?” He asked, Annie smiled and shook her head. “No, John. Holmes, Sherlock Holmes.” The man looked sad about this, upset perhaps. She guided John to sit down in chair that was opposite Sherlock’s, where he began to fiddle with the sleeves of his dressing gown.

“Why don’t you say ‘hello’, John?” Annie prompted, before getting up and sitting in a chair in the far corner

“Hello.” John said, his eyes were big and around as he looked at the man. It was almost the reflection of childlike innocence. John sat still in his chair and continued to fiddle with the sleeves on his dressing gown; he looked like he wanted to say something but couldn’t find the right words to do so. He bit his bottom lip and watched the man in front of him carefully.

"Hello, John." Sherlock had steeled himself not to grab John by the shoulders and shake him until he comes to his senses and his reality. Upon John's entry into the room, everything else had been reduced to a blur; the media circus occurring on every corner, the accusations of the people who once had trusted him. It broke his heart to see John, his John, the soldier-doctor who was brilliant in his own way, who had stuck with him through every case, crime and circumstance, who had believed in him even when he thought he had gone in the afterlife that he faked, now reduced to a nutcase in his own little naïveté. He wanted so much to point out that "Holmes" rhymed with "gnomes", that it was him who John was looking for all along. John's disability was of his doing. However, he knew that if he would point it out now, he would not be believed in, as he usually have. Suddenly, as he gazed upon John's wide-eyed, expecting face, a realization dawned upon him.

The only person who had believed in him has ceased to believe, in him and in anything at all.

He wasn't able to stop the solitary tear from falling down his cheek.

“Oh dear,” John started. “You’re leaking!” John said before reaching forwards and wiping it away with his sleeve. The feel of the cotton fabric of John's dressing gown against his face was the last straw; Sherlock let out one uncontrollable sob, his shoulders rocking vigorously and his lip quivering as he closed his eyes and bit them to stop them from shaking. It may seem that what John did was an innocent gesture, yet it broke his heart to a thousand pieces the more he thought of it. He should be the one wiping John's tears away, kissing his eyes until they stopped shedding any more.

John then sat back in his chair and tucked his legs under himself. The way he was sitting gave off the feeling that he wasn’t quite comfortable, he didn’t know what to do with himself. Meanwhile, the sobbing fit had stopped. Sherlock again opened his eyes, his vision a watery blur, to see John looking over his shoulder and at Annie, who gave him a smile and a little thumbs up. The actions made John smile, and when he turned back to look at Sherlock he was beaming a bright grin. “Did you know,” John said, his voice strong and perhaps a little proud, “I once won a prize for brewing the best cup of tea.” Most of the staff in the hospital had heard this many times. John told everyone who he thought would listen. It was like it was one of his greatest achievements.

The blond man suddenly looked nervous, the man in front of him was on the verge of  crying and John couldn’t work out why. He turned around and looked panicked at Annie. The nurse came over to him and sat on the floor next to his chair, taking his left hand and carefully rubbing soothing circles on the back of his hand with his thumb. “It’s okay, John.” She told him. John looked down at her before turning back to the man who smiled weakly. It made John feel terribly nervous.

In an attempt to lighten up the air in the room, Sherlock managed to clear his throat before replying, "That's very magnificent of you. May I give your tea a try sometime?"

"Gotta find my Gnomes first… I won my Gnomes because of my tea." John told the man, a small smile coming up on his lips. His Gnomes had really liked his tea. He had given him a ring for his tea.  It had been a brilliant prize. John didn’t have it anymore. The nurse took it off him, said he wouldn’t want to lose it.

Sherlock could remember it clearly, it was a certain night weeks before the Fall, when he came home to 221B Baker Street and there was John Watson, brewing some tea on the pot for their after-supper tea time. Little did John know then that Sherlock was a little box's worth heavier when he came back from what he had said was "gallivanting around, looking for casual street cases." He had surprised John by wrapping his lanky arms around the doctor's waist as he pored over the kettle on the stove, readying the water for pouring.

_ "You're home early, Sherlock." _

_ "I know. It's a boring night, that's why." _

_ "So why did you come home?" John wriggled out of the detective's embrace as he went towards the teapot on the kitchen counter, where some leaves were already waiting. Sherlock followed closely behind. _

_"Why, indeed?" Before John could even pour the water into the pot, Sherlock snatched the kettle from John and placed it back on the stove, much to his surprise. He then spun John around, so he would be facing him, and wrapped an arm around the other's waist._

_"You truly have a flair for dramatics."_

_Sherlock said nothing as he fished out from his right coat pocket a small, black, velvet box. With a careful hand, he opened the box, to reveal a simple white gold band about the size of John's left ring finger. He smiled as he watched the doctor gape with evident surprise at what was being presented to him that moment._

_"Be with me, John, and you shall have a lifetime supply of dramatics and case-solving. Just promise me I can have all the tea in the w-" He was interrupted with John's lips over his, ardent but gentle at the same time, followed by a breathy and beaming "Yes, Sherlock, I will."_

"I'll help you find your Gnomes, John." Sherlock stammered before he could even react and stop himself. This was it, he thought.

Annie looked up at Sherlock a little alarmed by this. None of them even knew what his Gnomes were! They had got a friend to check his flat for perhaps garden gnomes but there had been nothing there. It was a lost cause and thought of as a delusion.

“Mr. Holmes… I don’t think it’s wise to promise-” Annie got cut off by a very excited John. “My Gnomes! He’s going… going to find my Gnomes!” John grinned brightly, it was like someone had told a child they were going to have two Christmases this year. The nurse almost shot a disapproving glare in Sherlock’s directions. “Calm down, John.” She told him, reaching up and cupping the side of his face to make him look at her. “Calm down.” Annie instructed. John blinked at her and looked away, his wide smile shrunk a little bit. His Gnomes had been missing for so long.  Every time he tried to leave to go find him, he got stopped. His Gnomes needed him; he would never be able to look after himself. He’d forget to eat and sleep.  It would make his Gnomes ill.

"Miss Annie, I know John is your most favored of all your clients and you have this extra amount of admiration for him and his history, going as far as reading his medical abstracts and demographics but I feel I have more than enough right to help on his recovery." He was in his element now, using some of what he had deduced from the carer to his advantage. It seemed that he had hit home, for both Annie and John's gazes were transfixed on him.

"But, Mr. Holmes, promising such-"

"I haven't even promised him anything. I don't plan to, because I am doing it." Sherlock said in his coldest, most intimidating voice. Annie could only raise her eyebrows in exasperation towards his statement, while John's head turned back and forth of his carer and the detective, trying to grasp what was going on.

The confusion was making John’s head hurt. He threaded his fingers into his hair and kept turning his head between Annie and Sherlock. There was so much talking, too much talking. He brought his knees up to his chest and squeezed his eyes shut. All the confusion was making him feel lost. It felt so cold, like all the warmth had been drained from the room.

Seeing it was a sign, Sherlock went on to raise his left hand, which had been in his pocket for the duration of the visit, and then he spoke again.

"I was... Well, still am, his partner after all."

On his fourth finger was a white gold band.

Any minute now, Sherlock thought, he would be asked to leave the visiting room, and even be issued an order not to visit John because of the upset that he had caused. However, he could see from Annie's reactions that this has been John's most crucial of responses, because he could finally remember something from his past; he had remembered that he owned the ring, given to him by Sherlock. It may be enough to coax him out of his bout of mental illness.

“Shhh… Shhhh...” John was saying quietly throughout the small argument between Sherlock and Annie. But they didn’t hear him; he was just quiet enough for him to be able to hear it and no one else. When he next opened his eyes, which were now watering up from how exasperated he felt,  he noticed the ring on Sherlock’s hand. “Mine… That’s mine!” He exclaimed, pointing to the ring.

That was his. What was he doing with his ring?

“Annie… Annie, that’s mine!” John said as he got up. He didn’t make a move towards Sherlock but just stood there with his finger outstretched towards the ring. “That’s mine. My ring. Gnomes… My ring.” John babbled, tears rolling down his cheek. Annie quickly got up and stepped in front of John so that he couldn’t see Sherlock. “That’s not yours, John. Your ring is in the safe. It’s not yours.” She tried to tell John, trying to calm him down. “No! That’s mine!” John told her. He was all the more confused.

"Mr. Holmes, I suggest that you vacate the room as soon-" Annie instructed Sherlock as stern as she could, but he remained adamant and unfazed, even going as far as cutting off the carer before she could finish off the statement.

"I am staying here until I start making him remember."

With the carer being distracted, John took the opportunity of pushing Annie forcefully aside and rushed towards Sherlock. He immediately grabbed the hand with the ring in question and started to try and slip the ring off his finger. "It's my ring, give it to me!" Sherlock only froze as he felt John's cold and rough hands on his own.

Annie pressed the button on the top of her pager, sending a backup message to the doctor on duty. They only ever used the top buttons when they were worried someone was going to get hurt because of a patient. She quickly composed herself and put her hand on John’s shoulder and the other under John’s arm. “John. John, stop. Come on, now.” She spoke calmly, trying to pull him away carefully.

John was having a bit of a fit. Tears were streaming down his face. That was his ring. His prize. His Gnomes had given it to him. “That’s my ring.” He said, still trying to get it off. His hands were shaking too much and he couldn’t get the ring off. It was his. His ring.

It didn’t take long for a doctor to arrive; moving quickly to the other side of John and helping Annie pull him away. Once they had got John off of Sherlock they made him sit in the chair he had been in before. “He’s… my ring. That’s mine. He’s got my ring.” He told the doctor, trying to get up and to the ring. But every time he tried they made him sit back down.

Through the whole ordeal, Sherlock watched as still as a pillar, numbed even as John clawed and twisted at the skin of his hand. His struggle with taking off the ring had left the hand red, scratches evident in some places. Sherlock then clasped his injured hand in his well one, and brought it up to his mouth, blowing warm air into them.

The doctor rolled up John’s sleeve and picked up a syringe from his tray. He deftly broke an ampule, aspirated its contents, and pressed the needle into John’s arm, pressing the plunger down. The medication had a rapid effect on John, it made him calm down completely. His eyes went a bit hazy. It was like he was there, but he wasn’t; a spectator of his own life.

Sherlock shivered as he watched John, eyes flashing with a certain wildness, as he fought back the restraints being imposed on him, even when the doctor brought out a syringe with a dose of tranquilizers. Sherlock could not help but count the needle marks that dotted both of the other's arms. _...Eight, nine, ten, eleven._ He wasn't expecting to see the ghost of his past haunting him through John, vestiges of his bout of cocaine addiction eerily look the same on him, and it did nothing to ease his heart. When John was finally stilled, bleary eyes half-lidded as his head lolled on the backrest of the chair, he finally moved, careful not to to startle the invalid out of his drugged stupor. The carer acknowledged his presence again with much apprehension, but nonetheless let him approach John. Sherlock knelt at his feet, and took his hand, stroking it softly.

"John..." The detective's voice trailed off as he studied the hand he held, the scars from his military and medical life still evident, but now interweaving with newer ones of self-inflicted nature. "John, I know you're in there, still waiting for me." He paused, and then placed the hand onto his face, turning to place a light kiss to John's calloused palm, curls lightly brushing the back of his hand. "Sherlock Holmes is here now, John." He murmured. "Your Sherlock is here."

Sherlock remembered saying to John that sentiment was a chemical defect found in the losing side. And, there, on his knees in front of the shell of the man he most loved, he knew he had lost.

From within his addled mind, John vaguely heard a voice calling out to him. He could recognize the voice, but could not put a name or a face with it. Surely, he had made out the words, “Gnomes is here now, John.” He struggled to keep his eyes open, even as his vision blurred, to look from where the voice came from. He was very sure it was his Gnomes, and he came to him. The next thing he felt was a sensation of feathers on his hand. He knew felt it a long time ago, but so often that he could remember easily. Suddenly, as if the feathers spelled them out, the name he had been searching for had been returned to him. He instinctively repeated the name as his breaths grew deeper and longer.

“Sher… lock.”

 

 


End file.
